Flying visit to Rome

I promised I would blog more - in the midst of this busy year, full of changes and new ventures, it is hard to keep in contact with the amazing people I meet, and those I don't want to lose touch with, so here goes:

God has a sense of humor: after seven years in Rome, I was asked (and flown back) to come to Rome to sing in the Paul VI Concert Hall at the Vatican for the opening conference of Dicastery: The Pontifical Council for Promoting the New Evangelization. It was a moving experience for me.

After a morning of reflection and dialogue with the leaders of those movements involved with initiatives of New Evangelization throughout the world, leaders, members, cardinals and bishops from around the world filled Paul VI's Hall, where Cardinal Fisichella and his team had organized an afternoon of music and testimonies, followed by a meeting the Pope Benedict XVI, to launch and focus the work of this new council.

Towards the end of the afternoon, between the testimonies of Foundress Veronica Berzosa, Writer Vittori Messorio, scientist Marco Bersanelli and short concert by Andrew Bocelli, I was asked to give a 'musical witness' of evangelization through music, and chose to sing Dancing in our Minds, a song which tried to express what may be happening when one tries to sing (in) faith, and Lead Kindly Light, based on John Henry Newman's famous poem.

I found it profoundly moving to perform for such an audience, who I sensed both receive and pray with us as we 'sang' our experience of Christian faith. Monica Cardona, another missionary of my community, and Andrew Summerson, a seminarian for the Catholic Church of Greek rite who studies at the Gregorian, sang with me. Their availability and support was 'prezioso'

I cannot but think that this is one step forward in the Church understanding and moving with music as a beautiful and appropriate way of reaching out to our world. And as I seek to reflect upon and interiorize what I have lived, a phrase of the first song repeats in my mind: "Hold my hand in your side 'til..." keep coming to mind, and the words I sense from Jesus are: 'I felt you'; and I think what 'happened' there is that something of his life, his presence, the sap that is the life of his Body and ours, flowed through the room as we sang and prayed.

I certainly hope so.

I can feel my hair going grey with the quest to express the height and the depth and the breadth and the immensity of the truth we have access to when in all trust and audacity we open ourselves to how God is in our world and in our lives.

Why are we scared? How beautiful is a world-view that can sing about God present in all and through all!

Another beginning - another academic year. What do you want from me, Lord? Why am I here? What are your thoughts, your desires, your dreams?

Would that I could breath in your way of perceiving things... and move with you. Would that my mind were awake and alive to how you are present to all things, and in all things...

I need You.

This you know.

Hold me.

Awakening

And I awaken, once again to the same words gently surfacing in my mind: “Do you love Me?” And I think: what is going to happen today?...how are you going to interrupt my life today, and will I have eyes to see and recognise You? Or will the centripetal force of my need blind my eyes and distract my attention?

“And the world is alive with moving grace…

Place my hand in your side ‘til…”

What happens to You when I do…? What do You feel when we do take our place in your open side, and breathe with You , and live in You, and allow your blood run through our veins?

The Taste of You

Maybe, just maybe, I am spoilt with you
I have drank a wine so full and deep
That nothing else will do.
So it’s in the world and out of it,
Not of this time and yet so tuned
That every shimmer teases me
and every movement, every beat
Reminds me of the taste of You.
I drink again.

"We thought we had the answers - it was the questions we had wrong." Bono

The more I study and understand the dynamics involved in musical meaning, the more I realize that we need to measure our words more when we talk about music in the theological world. It is not enough to expound the wonders of musical meaning, its transcendence, its capacity of moving hearts and minds, the need for worthy prasie of God's glory, etc. Music is important, but

• Why?
• How?
• When?
• In which direction does, can and should it move us?

There is whole realm of musical studies: musicology, ethnomusicology, musical semiology that are still on the frontiers of theological research, and our lentitude in assuming them comes close, I fear or feel, to intellectual superficiality.

Would that we could let the Spirit guide us to deepen our quest for precise questions and answers about the meaning of music in our lives and cultures, without avoiding the complexity of both!

cd in Italiano: Nel Frattempo

Canti in Italiano, e alcuno in inglese...

per aiutarci a fermarsi nella vida